Are we alone in the universe? visited?

[LANMaster]

Are we alone? Or is/was/will there be other forms of intelligent life in the univers other than that born on Earth?

Has Earth ever been visited by a species not of this planet?

 

[Lurker1]

Hi LANMaster

Here you go, the back road of random!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?postid=182008#post182008

 

[LANMaster]

I saw that one, Lurker, but it is closed, and it is not a polling question. Besides, that one was created April 2001.
Thie for a fresh one.

 

[Tuppence2]

Hello,

I think that we are not the only intelligent species in the universe,
but that distances are so great, we may never hear from our "neighbours".

 

[pyritechips]

I agree with Penny. Most people can't comprehend the incredibly vast distances to the nearest stars, nevermind distant reached of the Galixy, or, other Galaxies.

If you tell you: on this beach there is one, and only one, grain of sand painted day-glo lime green, how long will it take you to find it? You will have a much better chance of finding it than of an Alien civilization finding Earth.

 

[Lurker1]

Yes that thread was closed but continued in another thread. It went all over the place as is usual in random.
I voted in your poll.

Its to far away to visit but some kind of contact may be possible through radio or laser beams. Thats why we have that big radio listening post set up. It will be a long time before any replys could be sent and received on the other end if we did receive some kind of transmission.

 

[CyBerAliEn]

The better question is whether there is even life else where to begin with. Intelligent life? Possibly yes, possibly no... but like said, the problem has to do with distance.

To explain it simply, the speed of light is the FASTEST, ULTIMATE speed that can possibly be achieved; nothing faster. The speed of light is approx. 186,000 miles a SECOND. This is a FAR distance to be traveled, especially in a second. Now, the closest STAR to the earth (other than our own of course) is approx. 4 light years away. 4 light years away does not sound like a very large number or distance; but it is quite large. There are (leap years can change this if you want to get technical, but it that only means that this distance will only be longer) 31,536,000 seconds in a year. Multiply that by 4 to figure out the seconds approx. in 4 years, and you get 126,144,000 seconds in four years. Multiplying the second in four years times the speed of light per second, will give you the miles between the earth and the CLOSEST star to the earth (this star doesn't even have planets... and the other closest ones are about 6+ light years or more, and even those closer ones do not have planets). So this gives you approx. (or I should say ATLEAST) 23,462,784,000,000 miles between the earth and our closest star, and this can be achieved in four years IF you could even travel the speed of light.

Now to understand, we still have "trouble" (not necessarily trouble, but you can consider it that) to get a single atomic particle (neutron, proton, or electrons) to reach the speed of light. This takes A LOT of power to do. Now consider how many of these elementary particles are in the human body, then in a space craft, and you find that you need A LOT of energy just to get to the speed of light. Just on the fact of energy, it would be quite phenomenol (sp?) for any intelligent "race" anywhere to achieve such. Once you figure out how to get that much energy though, you can have to figure out how you would construct such a "vehicle" and all the other aspects.

 

[LANMaster]

Cyber. That's a lot of good data.

I voted same as you, but I was torn. Earth could have been visited long long ago when the universe was smaller, therefore the distance would have been significantly reduced.

But I like the way you think.

And who knows 100 years from now we may discover a new technology that makes it possible to hop between the stars. Heck 100 years ago we weren't even driving cars. Now we're building a space station.

 

[CyBerAliEn]

The point of the matter is this... the closest star with planets (not even habital) to the earth are approx. probably 100,000+ light years away. Now, you tell me how we do the following:

1 - Who is going to ride in (more than likely small as possible space ship because of the energy issue; just 355g [amount of soda in a can] would take a CONSIDERABLY large amount of energy to propel and keep at the speed of light, so making a ship larger for living room or such is really out of the question)... so as I was saying, who is going to be willing to be cramped into a space ship for 100,000 years with potentially 10-20 other people with you. Somebody is bound to go insane on a murderous rampage way before they even get there. I never thought of this, but this is considered a PROBLEM by NASA in terms of just traveling to MARS, which would only take approx. 850 days (not completely sure, but this is pretty close). Now, if NASA feels there is such a HIGH possibility of a crue of about 10 going murderous on a 850 day journey, why not on a journey of about 100,000 YEARS!

2 - How are you going to keep any human alive this long? Even with chriogenics, you still have to counter in what effects might be taken on ANYTHING larger than a molecule (H2O, water, is just TWO hydrogen atoms and ONE oxygen atoms, and I do not believe we know yet what effects there would be on this at the speed of light; could it be so intense that nuclear bonds "break"? we do not necessarily know) at the speed of light. Now to give an idea, the human body of course is made of cells. Cells are made of atoms (mostly carbon, phospherous, sulfer, nitrogen, etc). One cell is made up of trillions+ atoms. The human body has billions or trillions of cells. Now if the speed of light has any effect, it is bound to effect the human as well as the "vehicle" used.

Really... traveling to ANY other PLANET, that is habital, is really impossible to say at the least. Why is simply because the laws of physics state such in fact.

(Have to edit to note that I did not vote. The poll is about life else where, no option supports the vote that life, even intelligent life is possible, but that it has not visited the earth.)

 

[CyBerAliEn]

To give an idea of the size of an atom:


An average Pepsi soda can has 355g of soda. So know you know roughly how much 355g is. Grams of course, have to do with HOW MUCH MATTER is there, unlike weight.

Now, I assume everyone knows that soda cans are generally made of aluminum, an aluminum alloy, etc. So you know what aluminum is like.

Now, consider the "amount" of 355g, think of how much 27g is. This is approx. 7.6% the amount of 355g.

Now think of how much 27g of aluminum would be.

Within this 27g of aluminum, there is almost exactly 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms of aluminum.

To expand this even further, you could GIVE EVERY PERSON OF THE WORLD $1,000,000 (if it were dollars of course) EVERY DAY for over 1,000 years.


Makes you think...

 

[CyBerAliEn]

Also to note separately:

Now that you know how many aluminum atoms are in just 27g of aluminum, you get to understand how small atoms are. Now considering that each "stable and normal" (no isotopes or anything) aluminum atom has 13 electrons, you can imagine that amount of electrons in this 27g to be A LOT more.

With particle accelerators, it takes up about as much power as a small city uses just to bring ONE electron to the speed of light. To also note, is that most particle accelerators (normally at a university or such), usually have their own power facilities to generate the power needed.

Multiply that amount of power used (for just ONE electron) up to how much mass there would be for such a vehicle and everything in it, you can begin to understand that the energy needed just to get to the speed of light is phenomenol (sp?).

 

[GreenIs]

Oh my goodness, CyberAlien. You are one smart bunch of atoms.
I need to go and rest my brain now...that was the most thought provoking bit of information I have read in awhile. Got to love intellectual points of view. I'll be back to this thread to learn more that's for sure.

 

[LANMaster]

Have to edit to note that I did not vote. The poll is about life else where, no option supports the vote that life, even intelligent life is possible, but that it has not visited the earth.

#3 could support that.

 

[Mulderator]

Originally posted by GreenIs:
Got to love intellectual points of view.

And that's why Green loves Mulder!!!

 

[n2gun]

LANMaster
The Moderators can edit the poll. You could PM them and ask them to do it.